Today gas is half of what we produce — half gas, half oil. Not many people know that. And gas is also a fast-growing energy for Total; we are a leader in liquefied natural gas.

We need — the world needs — more energy. Demand for energy is increasing. We will still need fossil fuels. Of course renewable energies will grow, and Total will be active in the renewables sector. But among fossil fuels, gas is the greenest — at any rate the cleanest — energy, especially in the production of electricity. And so gas has a future. We think it will become the leading fossil fuel in the global energy mix.

TITRE 3CARBON PRICING: AN INITIATIVE TO COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE

Gas competes with other energies, especially coal in power generation, and the price of coal is extremely low right now. In Europe, this has led to the closure of gas-fired power plants, thereby favoring coal-fired power plants. The way to fix this is simply to put a price on carbon. And in fact, in a first, six major European oil and gas companies — BP, Shell, Total, Statoil, Eni, BP and BG — have banded together to appeal to national governments. During the COP 21 negotiations, we want to see progress on the question of finding a mechanism for attributing a price to carbon. That would be significant because a price signal is what investors will need to choose gas over other energies. I don't believe that an energy producer can look ahead 15, 20 years without concluding that we also have to think about how to mitigate global warming. It's a challenge we all share. We are part of the problem, because of the products we make. One-third of all carbon emissions are produced by oil and gas. But we're also part of the solution. We have the technologies, skills, expertise and financial resources, so we have to engage. We have to face up to reality and I think that seeing oil companies interested in finding solutions to the issue of climate change is a very positive trend.